Brake pads including, for example, those used in automotive vehicles, are typically made of a steel backing plate and a compressed friction material. The compressed friction material is bound to one surface of the steel backing plate and is configured to make contact with the metal brake rotor of a vehicle and provide the requisite stopping force on the wheel of the vehicle. In this regard, brake pads are often chosen depending upon the particular vehicle, with the hardness and compressibility of the friction material in the brake pad being tailored to improve the performance of the brake pad for the particular vehicle and the uses of that vehicle.
To control the hardness and compressibility of the friction material in a brake pad, the manufacturing of brake pads is typically performed through the use of a hot press assembly that heats and compresses an amount of powdered friction material against a metal backing plate to thereby form the brake pad. By using such a hot press assembly, variability between brake pads produced for a particular vehicle or application can be minimized as the hot press assembly tightly controls both the amount of pressure being applied to the powdered friction material and the amount of time that pressure is applied to the powdered friction material. Variability between brake pads for a particular vehicle or application, however, is also affected by temperature variability and heat distribution in the hot press assembly, and, to date, few improvements have been made to existing hot press assemblies to reduce such temperature variability and heat distribution throughout the manufacturing process.